Just started a few days ago. Quite a few general questions please.

[Vektrat]

This may help you, or may not, I have it in a private wiki for friends starting the game, so I'll just paste it here.

It is a general starting guide with the must knows for newbies in order to make their life easier / not miss on stuff they would probably not want to miss

• Everything is autoloot (no trash loot, just yellow gold bags to be sold)
• Menders repair gear
• Only one main scenario quest line per character, one class quest line per class, side quests are unique
• When turning in an item RIGHT click the grey item on the turn-in miniwindow, then left click on the newly-appeared icon
• If you attack a mob someone else is killing you still get exp/rewards/quest objectives
• Needed mobs have a golden icon over them, main story have a meteor, and hunting log ones have a bullseye
• Linkshells are chat channels with a member panel (L), Free companies are guilds
• At some points it is important to keep main story quests up to date (chocobo level 20, and all the dungeon unlocks)
• Important: If at some point you can't take your next main story quest (level requirement), NOTE down where this NPC is to avoid losing it
• Log out in a Sanctuary for an experience bonus built up while offline! If you are in one, a moon will appear below your exp bar (Sanctuaries are the Inn in the cities, and the areas around the blue teleport crystals out of the cities)
• Touch (attune to) EVERY small teleport crystal (blue icons) in the cities; they allow you to freely teleport around them
• Touch EVERY big teleport crystal around the world, they allow you to teleport (for a fee) around the world (favourite them for cheaper costs, up to 3)
• Touch EVERY chocobo taxi NPC in the camps, they allow transport between them intra-zone for a very very small fee
• Arch arrows coming from NPCs means they're aggroing/casting something on you.
• Mouseovering a mob (specially in dungeons) will let you know if it is linked to others by displaying yellow beams between them
• The letter next to a mob tab is just an identifier for communication
• Private communication (tell) and linkshell/guild panels are NOT available when in a Duty (instanced quest, dungeon, etc…)
• Chat text between green and red arrows is autotranslated depending on the client (you can use it by TABbing when chatting)
• Remember to spend your stats when leveling up (research where to), these can be reset, but cost 10k gil
• There's a button to Join instances already in progress in the U window
• Retainers are the banks of this game in case you are running out of inv space, they're also used to sell items to other players
• R and mousewheel are autorun shortcuts
• There's a Recommend button in the Duty icon (bottom right), this will list recommended stuff to do at your current zone
• If possible, get in party with a tank or a healer when joining queue in the Duty Finder (U), speeds up the queue by A LOT
• Leveling a second/third/… class comes with a 50% bonus exp
• At level 45 you get a full class quest gear upgrade (don't take gear from quests when around those levels)
• Overhealing generates aggro (beware of regen/fairy on pulls!)
• Don't hesitate to ask high levels for help, they might have lower classes they want to level, or even be just nice!
• EXP possibilities
  -Hunting log (H), keep it up to date!
  -Side quests
  -Main story quest
  -Class quests (every 5 levels, visit your trainer, they give exp, gear, and skills!)
  -FATEs (public quests), do all the ones you cross by specially from level 35 onwards
  -Levequests (repeatables, you get allowances every day, better leave them as a last resort)
  -Guildhests, small short raids, approximately every 5 levels, DO THEM! big exp bonus the first time!
  -Discovering whole areas (do this only at high level)
• Important checkpoints
  -Every 5 levels (class quest)
  -Everytime a dungeon is available (get story up to date, or go fetch the side quest to unlock it)
  -Level 20: Join a Grand Company, get your chocobo (you have to farm 2K company seals, recommended to do Halatali dungeon for the GC hunting log) - Chocobo guide
  -Level 30: Quest to use Chocobo in combat (requires Gysahl Greens)
  -Level 30: Get your job (for example, MNK if you started as pugilist)

[Enkidoh]

[*] At level 45 you get a full class quest gear upgrade (don't take gear from quests when around those levels)

This isn't totally correct - the Job quest you get at level 45 only gives you the first four pieces of your Artifact Armour (AF) - this is special Job-only armour that takes the appearence of that Job from past FF games (for instance, White Mage (WHM) AF is a white robe with red triangles).

This quest only gives you the hands, feet, legs and headpiece - the body piece isn't given til you complete the final quest at level 50, so you'll still need to find another replacement body piece to tide you over til then. But what you do get at that level, definetely equip, as it's the best gear you can get at that time.

[*] Bards are mostly played by retards, beware

I'm sorry but this is a stupid comment and is purely subjective - personally I dislike Bard (BRD), but that's for other reasons completely unrelated to FFXIV (spoony Edward in FFIV forever ruined that Job for me ), and I definitely would not call a player a 'retard' simply based on what class/Job they prefer to play as.

There are plenty of stupid/incompetent players out there who play as other classes/Jobs. This is nothing more than personal opinion, and should not have been mentioned I'm sorry to say.

Other than that, I agree with everything you've mentioned. Well done!

[Naberrie]

All BRDs are retards? You put that in a guide? Really? I mean, otherwise good stuff, but you could drop the offensive, insulting and utterly useless part about BRDs.

[Vektrat]

All BRDs are retards? You put that in a guide? Really? I mean, otherwise good stuff, but you could drop the offensive, insulting and utterly useless part about BRDs.

I'm sorry this slipped, this "guide" is a private thing for friends, and it resulted an obvious joke for them, sorry if it failed to reach you.

Either way, it is true that BRDs are the class that screws up most pre-50, together with tanks; or at least the most evident.

In any case, this wasn't meant to be a "guide" point or an opinion, as I said, a joke, so nevermind it.

[coldheart21]

Wow there is a ton of useful information here that I didn't know before! Thank you all for your contributions! Ill be referring back to this thread when I get home or when I come across other things I don't know. Thanks again everyone!

[TheTen]

Private communication (tell) and linkshell/guild panels are NOT available when in a Duty (instanced quest, dungeon, etc…)

However, Linkshell and Free Company chat is still available, so if you want to be able to chat with friends while doing a dungeon, get into a Linkshell with them, (Just don't get distracted from doing your job )

[Enkidoh]

I think he means the actual tabs for them in the menu are not clickable (they're greyed out), so you can't utilize actual functions from them until you're out of the duty.

But if you already have a LS/FC set up before entering you can still use them to chat, you just can't join or leave any while inside.